Swallow the Sky: A Space Opera (17 page)

“Unfortunately I am too
busy to join you, so I will say goodbye now. The next time we meet I hope to
have a shipload of treasure for you to catalog.”

There was an awkward
pause until Aiyana stepped forward and gave him a hug.

“Take care out there” she
said.

Their mutual enmity was
overwhelmed by one of the oldest of human emotions – the moment of intimacy
before departure on a long voyage. For once Shin’s smile was tentative, making
him appear both vulnerable and sincere, and with that he was gone.

Carson felt slightly
ridiculous sitting in his formal suit as their limousine headed towards
Cissokho City but he had to admit that Aiyana looked wonderful. Shin had found
her a dress made of deep blue nouveau silk, its loose folds cascading down her
body. The material was slightly luminescent, its glow complementing the
excitement in her eyes as she craned her neck to see the approaching metropolis.

The center of the city
was dominated by the latest architectural craze, organic-themed buildings. Towers
sprouted branches, leaves, and fronds that interlocked with their neighbors
like trees in a densely-packed forest. Four hundred meters above the ground
condominiums snaked between cafes, art galleries writhed over gymnasiums while
twisting walkways joining one building to another. Carson winced at the
complexity, although no matter how clever the construction crafting the leasing
agreements between adjoining properties must have been the ultimate challenge.

“That’s where we’re
going!” Aiyana cried, pointing at a tall spire. Unlike its companions, the
structure was a simple needle-like shaft two kilometers high, its crown
sheathed in glimmering light.

They parked at the base
of the building.

“Not joining us?” Carson asked, smiling at Tabarak and Ubay.

“We’ll be waiting for
you” the big man said.

The lobby politely redirected
them – apparently the Aether had its own entrance. Two gilded doors parted as
they approached. Carson was astonished to see that they were opened by real
people, a man and a woman, who beamed as they entered.

“Welcome honored guests”
they chorused in unison.

They stepped inside to a softly-lit
reception area decorated with fresh flowers. The walls sported a line of Vanuka
paintings that had the alarming appearance of being originals. A stylishly-dressed
woman came forward to greet them.

“Aiyana, Carson, welcome
to the Aether!”

She gave them a
Shin-class smile.

“Your host, Elder Juro,
is already seated; Zaakir will take you to his table. Have a marvelous
evening!”

A uniformed attendant
appeared who conducted them to the elevator. His manner suggested that the joy
of being awarded the Cissokho Prize would be a poor substitute for the pleasure
he was receiving from their presence. The news that they were first-time guests
made him giddy with excitement.

“Our elevator is of an
open design. If you wish, I can opaque the walls.”

Aiyana would have none of
it, she wanted to experience everything. As the ascent began Carson realized
that open really meant open – they were enveloped in nothing but a peristaltic
field. Moments later they passed through the roof of the lobby and rushed up
the side of the building with no apparent means of support. Their ascent took
them in a graceful spiral, affording them a 360 degree view of the city, but as
they continued to rise lesser buildings fell away leaving them alone to soar
into the night.

Aiyana clapped her hands
and tried to look everywhere simultaneously but Carson just smiled and watched
her face glowing in the reflected light. Eventually the climb slowed as they
reached the glowing pinnacle.

“Have a wonderful dinner!”
Zaakir said as the peristaltic field eased them through the luminescent wall
into the Aether.

“Oh my!”

They had emerged onto a
translucent semicircular shelf set halfway up the wall of a cylindrical atrium.
The whole space, perhaps eighty meters tall and twenty meters wide, glowed like
a moonlit cloud. Immediately in front of them in the center of the semicircle
was a linen-covered table where Juro sat deep in conversation with a member of
the restaurant’s staff. Similar outcrops, each bearing a single table, spiraled
round the atrium’s walls from top to bottom. A quartet of musicians, suspended
in midair, orbited a central column of prismatic light that ascended throughout
the huge space.

Juro glanced up and
gestured them to join him.

“There you are! Come, the
first bottle of wine has been selected.”

Two staff appeared from
nowhere to hold their chairs as they sat down. Another, a woman, also
materialized. Her demeanor made their new friend Zaakir look positively grumpy.

“Elder Juro, welcome once
more to the Aether. Aiyana, Carson, we are delighted to greet new guests. Your
first course will be with you momentarily.”

A flunky filled their
glasses.

“We use water exclusively
from Raj e” the woman continued “a glacier world of unparalleled purity.”

Oh God, mused Carson, they ship
water
from another system?

“Where’s the menu?”
whispered Aiyana

“Good Lord my dear” said
Juro at his most avuncular “at the Aether you eat what you are given. Do not
worry! You will not be disappointed.”

Right on cue, three more
servers appeared, each placing a small dish before the diners in perfect
synchronization.

Carson had worked out
where the staff was coming from: they simply emerged out of the shining central
column and floated across the gulf to the tables. Like the orbiting musicians,
they had to be wearing some kind of lift belt.

Looking again at what had
been put before him he realized that ‘dish’ was hardly an adequate description.
It was a diminutive piece of diamond coral in the form of a meta-seahorse. Its
front paws held a tiny bowl of mother of pearl upon which were arranged a
cluster of gleaming black spheres in a pearly emulsion. It would not have been
out of place in the window of a jewelry store.

“Chef Adega is so excited
to be welcoming guests from Kaimana that he has prepared this seafood course in
your honor. Malossol caviar in a puree of Kumamotos oysters, harvested
from the Gulf of Qinghai this morning. Enjoy!”

The woman and the three
servers floated away, and so began what transpired to be the finest meal Carson had ever eaten. Not the most enjoyable – it was difficult to relax when one of your dinner
companions was probably planning to murder you – but the inventiveness and
quality of the food were beyond reproach.

Intermittently, the sommelier
approached and entered into a technical discussion with Juro. The invariable
result was more wine.

“What’s that being
extracted from the bottle” Aiyana asked Carson “is it delicious?”

“No darling, it’s called
a cork, I’ll explain later.”

She gazed round the
atrium.

“What do you think this
is made of?” she asked, tapping her foot on the translucent floor.

“Thick layers of compressed
money”

Juro laughed “Soon you
will be able to dine here every night.”

By now they were on their
fourth bottle of wine, and Carson decided that the old man was sufficiently
unwound to try a little probing.

“I’m concerned that the
sudden appearance of an enormous quantity of Old Earth artifacts will depress
their price.”

“You are right, my boy. I
will release items very slowly, perhaps raising a mere ten billion a year. The
market should be able to bear that rate indefinitely, and with just a fraction
of the original cargo we will have enough for hundreds of years of sales.”

Carson did the math. “That’s
a trillion Ecus a century – you will be the richest man in history.”

Juro waved his hand in ascent.

“We are developing a sales
strategy with Hobs Treys, New Earth’s premier auction house. Distinguished
scholars such as yourself will publish academic papers on the unprecedented
nature of the discoveries; selected media outlets will be given exclusive
previews making the sale news in every major system; ultra-wealthy connoisseurs
will be invited to private viewing of the artifacts and there will be talk of
‘once in a lifetime’ opportunities for those willing to make bold pre-emptive
bids. The first auction will take place immediately before the release of the
final episode of Exodus, of which Clan Aniko is a major corporate sponsor. In short,
we will create a buying frenzy.”

He finished by draining
his wine glass and banging it down on the linen tablecloth.

To Carson this was all
bad news. Asima had said that the old man wanted the money to fund some kind of
crazy revolution against the Covenant. The idea might be absurd but a trillion
Ecus could finance no end of havoc.

Juro was talking again.

“You too will do very
well. I shall award you and Kalidas a commission of one percent each. That will
give you an income of one hundred million a year for the foreseeable future. Do
you have any idea what wealth of such magnitude can bring? Each day, teams of
people will meet for the sole purpose of making your life more pleasurable.”

He sat back, eyes half
closed.

“You’re confident that Shin
will be successful?”

“Completely”

“But this is what I don’t
get” Carson persisted “it was only a week ago that we learned that the treasure
even existed. It was a good bet that there was a second layer of audio on the
Teng cassettes, but it could have contained anything. Yet an expedition has been
in preparation for months – you were willing to spend all that on a hunch?”

“Not just the expedition!
Tell me, how do you choose star systems for your mail route?”

“I’m not sure why you’re
asking – I run an optimum path analysis based on package addresses. Generally, the more mail I have for a system the sooner I am likely to visit it.”

“And do you have any idea
how many letters poor Shin had to generate on Procyon c to guide you to
Kaimana?”

Carson stared at him.
How
deep does this thing go?

“That must have cost a
fortune! What made you so confident?”

“Isn’t it obvious my
boy?”

The sommelier magically
reappeared to refill their glasses. Juro paused until he had left.

“When I told you that
there are only seventeen Old Earth artifacts in private hands, I was not quite
correct.”

Carson thought for a
moment.

“Oh my God!” he said

“What is it?” asked Aiyana,
who had been listening to the conversation.

“How could I not see it?”

Juro nodded, half
smiling, like a schoolteacher encouraging a dim pupil.

“What?” Aiyana said
again.

Carson turned to her.

“There’s a third
cassette.”

One of his agents had
found it in an antiques store on Kaluma b, Juro explained. The dealer had no
idea what he was selling, and how it got to the obscure star system was a
mystery. Unlike the first two, the cassette contained only a few hours of audio,
and that on a single layer. It was probably the last recording Teng ever made. Despite
the lack of skilled preservation the tape was in good condition; even so
decoding it was major a challenge, one that had brought Kalidas and Juro
together for the first time.

“Most of the material was
irrelevant” Juro explained “but the first forty minutes was the conclusion of Sakyamuni’s
interview. He spoke of the supply dumps but with no reference to their location.”

The old man chuckled.

“You can imagine my
frustration.”

“So you had to get the
first two cassettes at any cost.”

“Precisely – Kalidas had
already concluded that there was a hidden layer on the two Archives cassettes
but he was struggling to master the technology to read it. I supplied him with
the resources.”

“But you never told him
about the Sakyamuni portion of the tape.”

“I felt it best to
withhold that information, he was excited enough already. It proved to be of
little consequence, for now we have everything: the identity of the star
systems and a good idea as to the supplies’ precise whereabouts. In a few
months we will have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

“Can I listen to the
third tape?”

“I will send you a
transcript of the relevant section.”

Finally, after sixteen
courses including two more of Adega’s famous spontaneous creations, the dinner
was over. As they descended to the reception area Juro announced that he was spending
his last night in Cissokho City.

“I will see you again
when we reconvene to examine the treasure. Until then I trust you will both
behave yourselves.”

“Don’t worry, we will” Carson said.

Juro held his gaze for
several seconds then tottered out the door, leaving them to wait for the
limousine. As soon as he left Carson realized that the subliminal buzz in his
head had gone; the old man must have been carrying a suppressing device.